New album from Sam Semple

The emotional core of A Drinker’s Dream is a father’s love for his son; letting go of old ways to meet the challenge of being a good dad. It’s an album where both the father imagines a future world he’ll never know, and while leaving his son with the tools to navigate it without him.

The record represents the hope that the act of making an “analog” record like this will one day serve as inspiration – that making time for playing, dreaming, creating can make for a full and happy life. Even in the darkening age of the robot.

Musically, Sam wanted to bring these songs completely to life with a dynamic, vibrant production. It evokes Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter traditions — also touches on Harry Nilsson, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen.

Li Po, Hesse & Interstellar

The title A Drinker’s Dream is a coded reference to Hermann Hesse and the great Chinese poet Li Po, via Hesse’s wonderful novella Klingsor’s Last Summer. Li Po is the “drunken immortal”, a spiritual archetype who represents the wild and solitary, poetic part of us all – the creative fire – something inherently human no AI can ever “know”.

Added to this, the mysteries of spacetime so brilliantly captured in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, provides another motif that echoes throughout.

The Players

There are some wonderful musicians playing on A Drinker’s Dream, all friends of Sam: Jon Thorne (Lamb) on bass; Brad Webb (Amy Winehouse) on drums; and Grammy-nominated Danny Keane (Mulatu), as producer, string arranger, and pianist.A Drinker’s Dream also features The Webb Sisters (Leonard Cohen) who are sing on a number of the songs with Sam, including one of the album’s central songs, ‘River’, which they co-wrote with him.

A Drinker’s Dream was mixed by Scott Greiner

Mastered at Abbey Road by Miles Showell

Recorded at The Fish Factory Studios, engineered by Simone Gallizio

Artwork by Henrietta Simson / Photography by Jaimie Gramston